Alice in Wonderland DVD Review

Go back to Wonderland with Alice, the Mad Hatter and, of course, Tim Burton.

You get a 5.1 Dolby Digital track here that's more than sufficient to deliver the lively audio presentation. Dialogue is rich, clean and never crowded out by the other elements. Chief among those elements is the score by longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman, which fills the sound field almost wall to wall for much of the film. The dynamic range is wide from top to bottom as well, bringing the listener clear, distortion-free treble and strong, booming bass. When the surround channels are employed, most notably in the climactic battle scene, the sound is even more engaging. Additional audio options include English DVS (Descriptive Voice Service) 2.0 and French and Spanish tracks in 5.1.

Score: 9 out of 10

Extras and Packaging

In an obvious effort to encourage consumers to transition to Blu-ray, this DVD is available as either part of the Blu-ray combo pack or as a standalone release. In either case, you get far fewer extras than the Blu-ray version, cut down from a dozen to just three. The chosen three are:

Finding Alice

The Mad Hatter

Effecting Wonderland

Running five and a half minutes, "Finding Alice" covers the creation of the title character and Burton's particular take on it. The cast provides interviews about their own ideas of who Alice is, including Wasikowska herself. The piece also touches briefly on the costumes and stunts.

Similarly, the six-minute featurette "The Mad Hatter" covers that character from the initial conception – including drawings done by Depp and Burton – to the final product in the film. We get more interviews with the cast here and some interesting footage behind the scenes. There's also an explanation for why the Hatter suddenly becomes Scottish at certain points in the film.

"Effecting Wonderland" covers the most expansive element of the film, the visual effects. Just seeing the feature itself, you'd have no idea how little the actors had to work with on set and how much of the film was created in the computer. This nearly seven minute segment is probably the most interesting and informative of all the extras.

The disc also includes the standard "Sneak Peeks" of Disney films, a tutorial on how to download the digital copy of the film and a promotional piece titled "Dylan & Cole Sprouse: Blu-ray is Suite!" which features the stars of Disney Channel's The Suite Life on Deck talking about the wonders of Blu-ray. Apparently Disney's latest marketing tactic is to reach out to younger audiences as well as their parents.

Score: 5 out of 10

The Bottom Line

The audio and video quality of this disc is top notch for a standard-definition release. It's too bad that Disney had to water down the extras. Unless you've ruled out ever getting a Blu-ray at some point in the future, the combo pack is your best bet.